


never summer

by theoboris



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Gen, M/M, finding your boyfriends shirt once youve moved away and realizing that you were in love with him, gay realization, nostalgia for two days ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:37:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20600147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoboris/pseuds/theoboris
Summary: The smell was almost painful, the last couple years concentrated into one sensation, cruelly familiar, heart-wrenchingly Boris. It was every stale cigarette, every beer we drank, every steak he had shoved into his coat, every time we had smoked weed up in Boris’ room, the chlorine from every time we jumped in the pool, too fucked to think to take off their clothes, laying on the edge after with our feet in the water, laughing until I thought I would be sick. It was Boris, his essence down to the core, and it hurt more than anything had in a long time.





	never summer

I hadn’t been back in New York for even 48 hours when Hobie announced that we were going shopping to get me new clothes. I tried to turn him down, I knew the shop was still deep in the red and I didn’t want him spending unnecessary money but he wouldn’t listen, all  _ nonsense, Theo _ and  _ you can’t be walking around school in the same two outfits every day  _ and  _ go get dressed while I walk Popper and we’ll leave when I’m back.  _

So up I went to Welty’s old room — my room, I guess, but I hadn’t yet grown used to thinking of it as such, the antique furniture and the feeling that the room was somehow an antique of its own somehow didn’t feel deserved by the life I had led for the better part of my teenage years— and pulled my bag up from where I had tossed it on the floor, exhausted, the other night, crawling into bed without even taking off my shoes or turning the light off. I hadn’t thought to unpack yet, and taking my stuff out of my bag— toothbrush, iPod, notebook, school blazer— felt like recovering relics from an ancient past life, foreign enough to be artifacts I was studying in school. How strange, for a life I had not lived two days before had instantly become a thing of ancient history. 

At the bottom of the bag, after carefully pulling out my copy of Wind, Sand, and Stars, I reached the change of clothes I packed. I hadn’t done a good job of packing, clearly, the jeans were horribly dirty, it looked like I had only grabbed one sock,  _ why hadn’t I remembered underwear?  _ and the shirt looked like it was much too big for m—

_ Fuck.  _

I stumbled back a few steps as if I had been shot in the chest. The shirt was bunched up from being in my bag, nothing visible except for the black fabric of the back, and yet I knew exactly what I would see when I unfurled it. My legs turning to jelly, I sat down on my bed, somehow grossly unprepared for what I had just been faced with. Slowly, I unfurled the shirt. 

I was back in Vegas, out of my mind, grabbing frantically at whatever I thought I might need to bring with me, Boris trailing behind and trying to convince me not to go. Everything was in sharp hyperfocus one second, then fuzzy and distorted the next. The only thought I could process was that I had to leave right then and there. I couldn’t wait around and let my fate fall into the hands of child services again.

“Potter, please. You can not wait just one day or so? We can go then.” Fuck. I had stuffed my bag and hadn’t remembered to pack a change of clothes. I dumped everything out and started over. Clothes— both Boris’ and mine, although the distinction hardly mattered at that point, the only difference was size— were scattered all over my floor, and I grabbed the first things I saw with no regard for what they were. Jeans. Socks. Shirt. If only I had spent one more fucking second looking at what shirt it was. 

Never Summer. Snowboarding Logo. Holes from excessive wear. _ Boris.  _

There were rocks in my stomach and my heart was in my throat.  _ Jesus, Theo, get a grip. _ Seeing some old ass dirty snowboarding shirt is really fucking you up that bad? It probably smells like shit. No need to freak out over something as stupid as Boris’ shirt, right?

_ Boris’ shirt. _ He had been wearing it the day we first met— Harry Potter, I hate the sun, come over and watch S.O.S. Iceberg, cooler to walk under the umbrella. It had been his favorite shirt, I thought, he was always less likely to share it than any of his other clothes, which were basically free for me to borrow whenever I wanted. It was the clothing item that had always been the most Boris to me, and I had, accidentally or subconsciously or whatever, taken it away from him. 

I realized, gripping the shirt so hard that my knuckles had gone white, that it was all I had left of Boris. Did it smell like him? Before I could think about it for more than a second my face was buried in the shirt, inhaling like it was my dying breath. Appropriate, since what followed felt like a part of me was dying.

The smell was almost painful, the last couple years concentrated into one sensation, cruelly familiar, heart-wrenchingly Boris. It was every stale cigarette, every beer we drank, every steak he had shoved into his coat, every time we had smoked weed up in Boris’ room, listening in case his dad came home, the chlorine from every time we jumped into the pool, too fucked to think to take off their clothes, laying on the edge after with our feet in the water, laughing until I thought I would be sick. It was Boris, his essence down to the core, and it hurt more than anything had in a long time. 

I heard my breath start to quicken before I felt it happening. The gravity of what I had done was finally setting in: I had once again lost the closest person to me. This time, however, no therapist or teacher or social worker could tell me that it wasn’t my fault. It was. No questions asked. I chose to leave, I convinced myself I had to go that night, I let myself leave him behind. I knew he wouldn’t follow in a couple of days like he said, and still I anxiously left, desperate to get out of there, not even thinking about him. How could I not have thought about him? How could I ever be so fucking stupid to leave Boris behind. Boris! After the museum, it didn’t feel like I could ever love and be loved again, not the same, not sincerely, not enough, never enough. I would never be enough, and no one would ever be able to love me enough for it to feel real. 

And yet, there Boris was, the relationship I thought I was incapable of finding, the impossible love in the middle of a desert, where no one existed except for the two of us. The only love in my life. Fuck. Fuck me. I hadn’t wanted to admit I loved him, and that I knew he loved me too. But how could I not? How you could spend all of your time with one person— alone together, against the world, providing and caring for each other— and not love them? My breaths were shorter now, quick and forced out, the shirt still pressed into my face, damp. 

I remembered school, the middle of some tedious math lesson, a girl who sat with me leaning over and asking me if I loved Boris. I was quick to anger, trying to explain to her our relationship, of course I  _ loved  _ him, how could I not, but I knew she meant something more, something I had pushed far back into the recesses of my mind, with reassurances to myself that if there was anything more, it was one-sided from Boris’ perspective, that I would let him down easy if he ever tried to make a move. But were his arms around me in the middle of the night not making a move? Were the nights I could only remember in short flashes nothing? And then of course there was the kiss. 

The kiss, the fucking kiss I had tried my best not to think about but that kept replaying in my head when I closed my eyes, the kiss, out of my mind and not knowing if it was the coke or how fucked I was or what but something about it felt familiar , it felt like I was going crazy, too fast for me to process, over before I knew what was going on and before I could react, like a million warning signs going off in my head, felt like what— if my life had taken a different path and I didn’t have the unfortunate firsthand experience— I would think a bomb going off felt like. Then, in that moment, heavy breathing on the sidewalk, I finally came to terms with the reality of my feelings, but I hadn’t, until now— my face was buried in the t-shirt, his scent and all of my feelings coming back— realized what it meant. 

I was never going to fucking see him again. He wasn’t coming to New York, he didn’t have a phone to text me, I had no way to reach him. The only real love in my life was gone forever, never to be seen again, completely dashed by my own stupidity. And I couldn’t even tell him I loved him. At the time I had been relieved. I was leaving forever, he had just bore his heart to me, and I couldn’t even admit that I loved him?  _ What the fuck was wrong with me? _ Did I want to remain unloved forever? Did I have to dash any chance at feeling cared for that I had, before something more came of it? Was I trying to protect myself from having the only love in my life ripped out from under me again? 

I felt like I was going to be fucking sick. 

“Theo?” Came Hobie’s voice at the door, followed by a quiet knock. “You ready? Popper didn’t want to go very far. Tried to just lay down on the sidewalk.” 

I straightened up, pulling my face out of the shirt and sniffling. I had to force a response out, and when I did, it sounded strangled and faint. 

“Down in a second,” I said, hugging the shirt close to my chest for a moment before putting it in an empty drawer at the bottom of my dresser, and trying to leave both Boris and my feelings behind until I was ready to deal with them again. I somehow didn’t think that day would ever come.

Years later it still hasn’t.


End file.
